Akron debuted its new tunnel boring machine this week as the city begins the next phase of its combined sewer overflow project. The type of machine, also referred to as a "worm" or a "mole," is named for Elaine Marsh, a prominent figure in Northeast Ohio’s fight for clean water.
As part of the Akron Waterways Renewed! plan, the machine will bore a 6,600-foot Northside Interceptor Tunnel that will hold up to 10 million gallons of sewage that would otherwise end up in the Cuyahoga River.
"These tunnels, which were a big part of this plan, would hold the water during rain events and then slowly take it to the treatment plant to be treated rather than sent out into the closest receiving stream, in this case, the Cuyahoga River," Marsh said.
Seeing her namesake in person was an honor, Marsh said.
"It was really a thrill that I have never had before," Marsh said. "A machine that is 619 tons, 18 feet in diameter and 460 feet long — who wouldn't want a machine like that named after them?"
Marsh spent much of her adult life working with Friends of the Crooked River, an advocacy group that works to protect the Cuyahoga River, and now serves as a watershed specialist with Summit Metro Parks.
Over the years, Marsh shifted from a critic to a supporter of the city as it handled its combined sewer overflow systems that were discharging pollution into the Cuyahoga, she said.
"Many municipalities that had to correct for this understandably did not want to spend the money," she said. "I saw the city transform from a municipality that was fighting investing the money to an organization, an agency, that fully embraced its responsibility to the river."
Marsh was a student at Kent State University in the 1960s. Seeing the detrimental effects of pollution in the river, including the infamous river fires, motivated her lifetime of environmental advocacy, she said.
"I was part of that generation that said, 'Look, enough is enough. This is way too important,'" she said. "We can't talk about the contamination of our environment, the contamination of our health .... as though it were economic development. The protection of the environment cannot be ignored."
The boring machine is essential to improving waterways in Akron, Mayor Shammas Malik said in a news release. Naming the machine after Marsh was an easy decision to make.
“The City of Akron could not be more grateful to Elaine Marsh for her incredible advocacy and environmental work over the last five decades,” Malik said. "It was a clear choice what to name our newest tunnel boring machine, and we are proud to bestow this honor on Elaine in thanks for her incredible career and work to improve the Cuyahoga River."
This project wouldn't have been possible without the investment from the city and residents alike, Marsh said. But as the city completes its work on its combined sewage overflows, attention must begin shifting to an emergent threat to local waterways: stormwater runoff that can carry harmful pollutants.
"While people are beginning to understand the importance of stormwater, much more needs to be done to protect stormwater runoff in order to not see our water quality degrade and to keep it improving," Marsh said. "And by the way, we would have a prettier place to live if we did."
